Abstract
Do simple laws govern the dynamics of complex ecosystems? Are these dynamics predictable? These are hard questions to address because of the intrinsic complexity of ecosystems and the lack of data available. In a new study, Stanislas Leibler from the Rockefeller University, New York, and colleagues [1] take on this problem by tracking the population dynamics of a closed ecosystem of three microbial species at an unprecedented level of detail. Using a novel method of automated counting of single cells, which tracks the abundances of the species as frequently as every 400 seconds for 90 days, the authors find that the intrinsic dynamics of the three-species ecosystem are strongly deterministic, that is, the system’s evolution is highly reproducible under controlled external conditions. Despite the high level of determinism, the observed abundances of the species don’t have a simple dependence on position and time and, to current knowledge, are unpredictable. This means that although the dynamics of the system is not left to chance, we don’t know how to model its future states.
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